The NY Times reports that the militarization of Japan is continuing with recent practice bombing of a tiny island in the Pacific. Japan's pacifist constitution bans offensive military action but slowly the country's leadership has turned the tides of public opinion. JAPAN'S PEACE CONSTITUTION explores in depth the political maneuvering that continues.

The article also notes that while the rearming of the country might be understandable given current potential threats, it is "causing anxieties in a region where distrust of Japan has deepened in direct proportion to Japanese tendencies to revise the past," including the massacre of China's capital, Nanjing in 1937, and its wartime sexual slavery. SENSO DAUGHTERS is made by a Japanese filmmaker who reveals this history through eyewitness testimony, which stands in stark contrast to the Japanese denial.

Labels: Article 9, Asia, comfort women, Japan, politics, Shinzo Abe